{"id":726,"date":"2025-06-24T19:40:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/?p=726"},"modified":"2025-06-27T19:15:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T19:15:58","slug":"its-not-just-the-cities-extreme-heat-is-a-growing-threat-to-rural-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/audiomateria.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/24\/its-not-just-the-cities-extreme-heat-is-a-growing-threat-to-rural-america\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s not just the cities. Extreme heat is a growing threat to rural America."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Summer has officially begun with a blast of scorching temperatures across much of the United States. The National Weather Service<\/a> is warning of \u201cextremely dangerous heat\u201d baking 160 million people under a heat dome<\/a> stretching from the Midwest to the East Coast the rest of this week. It\u2019s already proven fatal<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But while this is the first real taste of extreme heat for Northeastern cities, parts of the country like Texas have been cooking since May<\/a>. Alaska this month issued its first-ever heat advisory<\/a>. Forecasters expect more above-average temperatures<\/a> through the summer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Summers are indeed getting hotter<\/a>, a consequence of the warming planet. As the climate heats up, the frequency and intensity of heat waves<\/a> is increasing and their timing is changing, arriving earlier in the season<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the damage from extreme heat isn\u2019t spread out evenly, and the more dangerous effects to people are not necessarily found in the hottest places. High temperatures often lead to more emergencies and hospital visits when they represent a big jump from a place\u2019s average, which means ordinarily cooler regions tend to suffer the worst harm from heat. That includes places like Alaska and the Pacific Northwest<\/a>, where temperatures rarely climb higher than 80 degrees Fahrenheit and most homes don\u2019t have air conditioning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now researchers have found that rural areas may suffer more under extreme heat than previously thought. A report from Headwaters Economics and the Federation of American Scientists<\/a> found that more than half of rural zip codes in the United States, which includes some 11.5 million Americans, have \u201chigh\u201d heat vulnerability, a consequence not just of temperatures but unique risk factors that occur far outside of major cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The thermometers thus do not tell the whole story about who is likely to suffer from extreme heat \u2014 nor do the images, which tend to come from sweltering cities<\/a>. But understanding the factors that worsen the harm of rising temperatures could help save lives.<\/p>\n

What makes the countryside so vulnerable to extreme heat<\/h2>\n

The discussion around the geography of extreme heat tends to focus on the urban heat island effect<\/a>. The concrete, asphalt, steel, and glass of dense urban areas act as a sponge for the sun\u2019s rays. Air pollution from cars, trucks, furnaces, and factories helps trap warmer temperatures over cities<\/a>, and that hotter air, in turn, accelerates the formation of pollutants like ozone. On a hot summer day, a city center can be 25 degrees Fahrenheit warmer<\/a> than the surrounding regions. And with so many people squeezed into these metropolitan ovens, it adds up to a massive health burden from extreme heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But far outside of downtowns, where homes and buildings get farther and farther apart, rural regions face their own long-running challenges that exacerbate the dangers of extreme heat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A major factor: the median age of the rural population is older<\/a> than in cities. That matters, because on a physiological level, older adults struggle more to cope with heat than the young. People living in rural communities also have double the rates of chronic health conditions<\/a> that enhance the damage from heat like high blood pressure and emphysema compared to people living in urban zip codes.<\/p>\n

Rural infrastructure is another vulnerability. While there may be more forests and farms in the country that can cool the air<\/a>, the buildings there are often older, with less adequate insulation and cooling systems for this new era of severe heat. Manufactured and mobile homes, more common in rural areas<\/a>, are particularly sensitive to heat. In Arizona\u2019s Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, mobile homes make up 5 percent of the housing stock but account for 30 percent of indoor heat deaths<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if rural residents have air conditioners and fans, they tend to have lower incomes and thus devote a higher share of their spending for electricity, up to 40 percent more than city dwellers<\/a>, which makes it less affordable for them to stay cool. That\u2019s if they can get electricity at all: Rural areas are more vulnerable to outages due to older infrastructure and the long distances that power lines have to be routed, creating greater chances of problems like tree branches falling on lines. According to the US Census Bureau<\/a>, 35.4 percent of households in rural areas experienced an outage over the course of a year, compared to 22.8 percent of households in urban areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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